Publisher DTP Crew

This is one of many short video segments which will be added to the Digital Tipping Point (DTP) archive. This interview features Tara Hunt, a community organizer who has been recognized internationally for her efforts at building local communities of tech-minded innovators. Over the Valentine weekend of February 14 and 15, Tara Hunt and her community got together to start the build-in of a new community collaboration space called CitizenSpace. Although CitizenSpace had existed for several years before this shoot, it doubled in physical size over this weekend. Tara's group, CitizenAgency, had taken a new lease on a 3,500 square foot space on the first floor at 425 2nd Street in the SOMA / South Park neighborhood of San Francisco. This new space was more than double the 1,500 square foot space located on the 3rd floor of the same building.

In this interview, Tara explains what her crew had accomplished on that day; namely they assembled bunches of tables and chairs and cabinets for the new space. The Digital Tipping Point crew believes that we are experiencing the beginning of a new renaissance of collaboration in the areas of literature, science, the arts, business, and the applied sciences, and Free Open Source Software plays a role in each of those areas of growth. Tara explains how the metaphor of the collaborative production method of Free Open Source Software shows up even in something as "real world" as the build-out of this new space for CitizenSpace.

Obviously, the video shot this day shows bunches of people collaborating on assembling desks and chairs and cabinets, but is that open source? Tara explains that the open source aspect of this collaboration is not so much the building of the tables, chairs and cabinets, as it is the sharing of the idea of collaborative space like CitizenSpace. She also talks about the culture of transparency and openness that is found in co-working spaces like CitizenSpace.

Tara is the author of a book called "The Whuffie Factor", and so talks about how Cory Doctorow's concept of the reputation-based fictitional currency called Whuffie plays a role in the creation of open source projects like her CitizenSpace project. Cory Doctorow creates a world called the Bitchun Society in which energy and Free Software are abundant, no one goes hungry, but people compete for recognition. Those with widespread recognition are said to have accumulated lots of Whuffie, a measure of wealth which can be easily determined by "pinging your Whuffie", meaning doing an Internet search of one's accumulated reputation wealth. Tara says that she believes that her CitizenSpace project has been successful because she has given to her community, and so has accumulated enough Whuffie to motivate the volunteers seen behind her in helping her build out this space.

For the DTP crew, Tara's CitizenSpace community stands as a visible metaphor for the motivations and rewards that move people to work on building and distributing Free Open Source Software.

Do also be sure to enjoy the scenes of Tara's little dog, Ridley, as he struts purposefully through the background of Tara's interview. Check back here at the Internet Archive's Digital Tipping Point for more footage of Ridley's appearances here and there, including one detailed interview with Ridley himself.

This footage is our raw rough-cut footage. It lacks transitions, music, special effectsor finish rendering. It is our "source code". Please feel free to rip, mix and burn this footage consistent with our Creative Commons license as disclosed on this page.

If you like this segment, please consider typing up a summary for it and emailing that summary to Christian Einfeldt at einfeldt@gmail.com. Your work will be credited and posted on this page.

The DTP will be many, many films created by the global open source video community about how open source is changing their lives. We, the DTP crew, are submitting this footage for anyone to rip, mix, and burn under the Creative Commons Attribute - ShareAlike license. We welcome edits, transcriptions, graphics, music, and animation contributions to the film. Please send a link for any contributions to Christian Einfeldt at einfeldt@gmail.com.

Or, if you would like to contribute by directly transcribing this particular video segment, you can do so by going here:

http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php/Tape_593

and typing the audio as you hear it into the wiki. Please be sure to add the transcription for this segment under: Segment 007, Tara Hunt
You can find other ways to contribute by going to our wiki front page here:

http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

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Contact Information Christian Einfeldt, einfeldt at g mail dot com